Julia Trigg Crawford has waged a well-publicized fight to prevent condemnation of an easement across her farm for the XL Keystone Pipeline. On August 27, the 6th Court of Appeals in Texarkana denied her appeal of TransCanada Keystone Pipeline’s award of an easement over her property. Crawford has vowed to appeal to the Texas Supreme Court.

The Court of Appeals’ opinion says that Ms. Crawford had two arguments: first, that the Texas statutes granting pipelines condemnation authority do not apply to interstate pipelines; and second, that Keystone had failed to meet the showing required by the Texas Supreme Court in Texas Riceland Partners v. Denbury Green Pipeline-Texas, 363 S.W.3d 192, 202 (Tex. 2012) that the pipeline must show “a reasonable probability … that the pipeline will at some point after construction serve the public by transporting gas for one or more customers who will either retain ownership of their gas or sell it to parties other than the carrier.” The Texarkana court held that Keystone had met that burden. The court also held that the relevant Texas statutes do grant condemnation authority to interstate common carrier pipelines.

The portion of the XL Keystone pipeline from Cushing, Oklahoma to Port Arthur, Texas is nearing completion. That segment of the pipeline has been able to proceed even though the Obama administration has not yet approved the segment of the system that would carry heavy crude from Canada across the northern segment of the XL Pipeline system.

The Supreme Court’s Denbury opinion initially caused significant consternation in the pipeline industry and generated unsuccessful efforts in the last Texas legislative session to amend Texas condemnation statutes to facilitate pipeline condemnations. The Crawford case is an indication that the industry’s fears that Denbury would significantly impair pipeline construction in Texas are unfounded and that Texas appellate courts have been able to apply Denbury without much trouble.

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